Rien van Haaften

Rien van Haaften (27 July 1950 – 30 October 2022) was a Dutch football referee. Van Haaften was for 25 years football referee, including in the Dutch professional league. For a total of 46 years he was active in various arbitration roles.

He refereed almost 1050 matches, of which 741 in the national league, 207 in professional football and 148 in the premier league.

Van Haaften became a referee in 1976. He became a referee on the B-list in the Dutch professional league from 1 January 1990. He refereed professional football matches for four years. He was afterwards a referee for another eight years in amateur football.He stopped at the time because the rule applied that arbitrators were obliged to relegate to group 2 at the age of 50. After his own referee career, he remained closely involved with the referees. He was an arbitration teacher and coach of various top and amateur referees. He was also a lecturer in arbitration. Until his death, he was active for the Dutch national football federation (KNVB), including as a coach in talent development.

In 2021 he was awarded a gold pin by the KNVB for his achievements within the arbitration corps and the training of talented referees.

Van Haaften was diagnozed with heart failure in 2021. He died in Nijmegen on 30 October 2022, at the age of 72.

The slogan he had for being a referee: "You must have an elephant skin and not the ears of an elephant".